The price of Thai rice will drop by 10-15 percent in the next two months as a result of efforts made by the Government to sell more rice in its stock, Chookiat Ophaswongse, honorary president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, has forecast.

Thailand’s Bangkok Post newspaper quoted Chookiat as saying that the trend will also be attributable to a huge supply of rice from the Vietnamese market.
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The winter-spring crop, which is Vietnam’s largest of the year, is usually harvested in March. Nearly all the rice from the crop will be shipped abroad.

The Thai Government has recently opened auctions to sell rice from its stock. It also sold 800,000 tonnes of stockpiled rice through a secret channel with a price level of only 9.6 THB per kilogram, much lower than the current market price, which fluctuates between 12-13 THB per kilogram.

On March 19, 244,000 tonnes of rice was on offer through the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand (AFET). But only seven enterprises attended the auction, compared to 37 firms at the previous session.

The government has planned to sell one million tonnes of rice through AFET, earning at least 18 billion THB. However, it has sold only 389,000 tonnes worth 4.8 billion THB since first auction in October last year.-VNA